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Most of us have lived in or visited a house with a comically small downstairs toilet (in some cases, too small to even hold the handwashing basin, which would invariably be located “across the way”) and such spaces are/were invariably purely functional, with little mind paid to their comfort or décor. Also, usually freezing cold in my recollection too.
But what if your whole bathroom is teeny tiny, and you still want to make it a nice place to brush your teeth, shower, and er, read the paper whilst taking care of business? How do you style a small bathroom if you’ve got big ideas? The first point to note here is that the seemingly-obvious main goal of making the room look larger might not actually be the best approach.
This blog post will share some tips and suggestions to consider if you want to know how to style a small bathroom.
How do you style a small bathroom?
So, how do you style a small bathroom without sacrificing functionality, comfort, or even safety to aesthetic decisions?
Factor in things like ensuring that a desire to minimise the room taken up by the shower doesn’t mean that raising your arms while actually in said shower becomes a physical impossibility, or fitting the toilet so close to the wall or sink that you either have to sit at an angle or squash your knees when using it.
Next, think carefully about storage and where it can go to maximise the amount of face goo you can keep in there while still being able to move; there are some really nifty and innovative storage options and hacks for small spaces to be found on the internet today, but also, some seemingly good ideas that might prove to be anything but.
Think about things like how far any cupboards or shelves will protrude into the room and risk you knocking things off them or catching yourself on a corner, and also think about utilising space higher up the wall and even ceiling-hanging options to leave you with more clear space on the ground.
Also though, be mindful that a lot of hanging stuff or even hooks over doors might scalp you if you’re not careful.
One thing I learned from living in a home with a very small bathroom (a narrowboat in case you don’t believe me, and not one of the bigger ones either) is that while you do ultimately learn the muscle memory to avoid/work around obstacles and inconveniences you’ve inadvertently built into a small space, this can get old and kind of start to ruin your life after a while.
Also, any visitors you have over will not possess these same skills, and so may need to be issued with fairly lengthy instructions in order to be able to use your bathroom successfully and avoid exiting it with bruises and/or requests for a dustpan to clear up some broken glass.
Can you make a small bathroom look bigger?
Potentially, there are a few things you can do to make a small bathroom look bigger, but you also have to manage your expectations here, unless your bathroom is actually the Tardis.
A good view to take on this is to work to ensure your small bathroom doesn’t look or feel cramped and try to maximise the available space and how effectively it is used, rather than trying to give the illusion of the sort of throne room that the actual queen might have, but executed in your 4ft square closet.
Also, don’t assume that you have to try to make a small bathroom look bigger; many people seem to think that this is some kind of rule, or set it as their goal without really considering why.
There is absolutely no reason why you can’t make a feature of the compact nature of the space, and how cosy and appealing this might be in itself; and heading down this path means working with what you have rather than fighting its very nature.
My main tip on getting your approach right here is to work to ensure that the bathroom doesn’t seem cramped, and then to play up the good parts of it being small, rather than being mad at it for not being a bit more substantial.
Small bathroom ideas to consider
With the above tips in mind, here are the best ways to style a small bathroom in my own personal opinion; this being as someone who both works (for actual real money, mind) in interiors and also, who built and then spent a decade using a bathroom that absolutely was simply a large shower tray turned into the floor/base of a wet room. Narrowboater skills, innit.
1. Mirrors, large ones
Mirrors are your absolute best friend when it comes to opening up a small bathroom and ensuring that it doesn’t appear cramped. The best way to approach this is by using a smaller number of large mirrors (say, taking up most of the back of the door, and as much of any given free wall space as you can) rather than having lots of smaller mirrors.
Think about how the angles of the mirrors work with each other as well as how useful they’ll be in practice; for instance, being able to see the back of your hairdo/outfit due to mirror placement is always a bonus as well as making your bathroom look larger, but also, nobody needs to have an unescapable floor-to-ceiling view of themselves sitting on the toilet.
Oh, one other point to note is that mirrored walls in the shower might not be the top move it at first seems either, if you live in a hard water area; the white crusting of limescale tends to develop quickly (within months rather than years) and is bloody hard to remove, and no, those “daily shower shine sprays” do not prevent it from developing.
I’ve never actually lived in a soft water area; which I’m not at all sorry for (have visited though, the tea tasted foul and trying to rinse your hair somehow felt like doing nothing other than adding more shampoo to it) but I assume this is far less of a problem or not a problem at all in your manor.
2. Other shiny things are definitely on the cards too
Shiny or rather, gloss tiles, trims, granite effects, shower wall panels with sparkly flecks in them and even window blinds with a sheen or satin finish are all good calls for a small bathroom. Glossy stuff will make a small bathroom look like a fancy capsule space rather than an afterthought on the part of the Taylor Wimpey planners.
Too much matte or general “flatness” in a really small bathroom can make it look both dull and one-dimensional.
3. Commit to a colour scheme (and don’t fall down the “only light shades” cliché-hole
Many people immediately look to go the “blinding white” route when it comes to styling a small bathroom, as received wisdom has always been that white and light colours are what you want to open up a space and ensure it doesn’t look cramped.
This can be true to an extent, but on its own, doesn’t cover all of your bases. Also again as I mentioned before, don’t automatically go the route of thinking that your goal should be to make your small bathroom look a lot bigger; if this is what you want then cool, but think about whether, and why, that is actually what you want.
A small bathroom done out in all dark but glossy décor can look absolutely amaze-balls and super high-end; I’m thinking things like glossy midnight blue or black floor-to-ceiling tiles and plumbing fixtures, perhaps with silver or rose-gold hardware like taps and trims.
Think really carefully about the colour or colour scheme you are going for before you begin; really whatever your end goal for the space is, it won’t work (either in terms of opening up the space, or of celebrating the snugness of it) if it’s patchy, inconsistent, or neither one thing nor another.
4. Keep clutter to a minimum…
If you’re trying to make a small bathroom look bigger, cutting the clutter is the first order of business. Even if your bathroom doesn’t have little man syndrome and is quite happy as it is thanks, a lot of clutter or every available surface is likely to be impractical, and result in frequent knocking-overs, particularly if you already have to do a three point turn to be able to enter and exit.
5. …Apart from plants
I’m a millennial (although so high at the upper end of the demographic’s age spectrum that I actually fall off the top of it entirely, depending on whose date ranges you’re working with) and I keep reading about how for my lot, “plants are the new pets.”
If this is in fact a thing, it is largely posited to be the case based on the stereotypes that all millennials rent, no landlords allow pets, and that we’re all too busy working 100-hour weeks down the Bitcoin mines to fund the Starbucks habits that are apparently our only barrier to getting on the property ladder so that in turn, we have no time to care for animals.
I didn’t strictly get this memo, being as I have a cat and no landlord (and also a Starbucks habit, but two out of three ain’t bad) but also, yes, I’m all about having tonnes of plants.
A bathroom that’s kind of jungled-out with lots of interesting plants trailing and climbing and providing both décor and oxygen plus a smug sense of self-satisfaction is a really nice space regardless of the bathroom’s size. Also, the extra-nice thing about having a really small bathroom is that it costs you less to fill it with plants as a result. Winner.
6. Open up the shower area
I’m kind of assuming that you have a shower rather than a bath in your small bathroom, because otherwise I’m not strictly sure that your idea of small and mine are the same thing. Opening up the shower area to the room (rather than making the room even smaller by means of hiding it behind a curtain or opaque partition) is always a sound move.
Clear glass shower doors or a panelled shower door, or even (if you’re actually renovating as well as decorating) turning the whole small bathroom into a wet room, can help to make a small bathroom look both cohesive, and roomier.
7. How do you style a small bathroom’s windows?
One thing that kind of ruins any bathroom regardless of size is if it is dim and dingy due to a lack of natural light. Bathroom windows are often on the small size (and frequently opaque to protect your privacy) and if the bathroom is north facing or simply doesn’t get much natural light for other reasons, the effect this has on the room can put a massive downer on all of the other positive things you have going on in there.
Maximise the natural light you get then, by means of using window blinds that have a small footprint over the glass when they’re open (so avoid blinds that stack in thick rows of slats or louvres; think roller blinds or aluminium Venetian blinds, for instance) and hang them inside of the recess too if you want to minimise the space they take up on the walls.
Don’t forget to ensure that any bathroom blinds you pick are waterproof!
8. Get the lighting right
And finally… The supplementary lighting used in your bathroom is something you should spend some meaningful time on too.
The level of lighting you can achieve, reducing shadows, perhaps having a dimmable option, choosing the right lighting tone, and even having a lighting effect that creates a cool pattern on the wall or ceiling can all totally transform a small bathroom.
Have you got a small bathroom that you love, or want to share an idea or hack for how to style a small bathroom? I absolutely want to see your pics! Email me or tell me in the comments.
